Woodworking blog entries tagged with 'mold'

When mentioning that Chinese woodworking does not use glue I always get the question how to edge-joint without glue.
On a recent trip to Southern China I had the opportunity to see a very nice example on what it looks like. The Perl River Delta (roughly the triangle spanned by Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Macau) is quite pleasant in Winter but extremely hot and humid in Summer. Since electricity is quite expensive people there tend to use the AC orders of magnitude less than in the US. This pu...

When framing anything using glass or acrylic as the glazing, there should be an air gap of at least 1/8” between the art or object being framed and the inside surface of the glass. This is to prevent moisture, from the condensation that will almost certainly occur, from transferring to the framed item. A common way to accomplish this is to use two layers of matting between the glass and the artwork. Other ways include special plastic spacers or to use a secondary rabbet in the frame ...

In the first half of this blog post, I cut up a Ficus log and made a nearly 11” round for later turning into a bowl. I sealed every part of it in Anchorseal. Flash forward about 12 days, this past Saturday, and I finally chucked it up and made a bowl. Unfortunately, as with everything Ficus I’ve ever sealed, it was covered with mold by this point, and a little bit stinky.
I figured I’d turn the mold away. I went with a faceplate on the soon-to-be-concave side:
...

Spent this weekend pressing clay tiles.
Used up 100 pounds of p-clay or sculptors clay in about 25 different handmade molds made from my mahoagny carvings.
70 tiles. Esimate 3 or 4 kiln loads.
Largest tile is over twelve inches high.
Smallest is about 4 inches.

After finishing the parts with TransTint #6003 Reddish Brown and three coats of hand-rubbed poly, I was able to glue them up. It went reasonably well. This design doesn’t have a back panel, so it’s easy for it to get out of square. I glued one of the shelves in backwards, but learned my lesson on the second one. After cooking for a couple of hours, they went into the house to get out of the garage.
It was now time for me to start working on the concrete tops. My brothe...

If I didn’t pour today, it would be several days until I’d have time to do it, so I slammed a beer and started mixing concrete. This is what I started out with:
The BuddyRhodes system is two bags of countertop concrete to one can of dye, so I mixed one bag into two five gallon buckets and poured about one quarter of the dye into each. On the first batch, I put water into the bucket first because it says it’ll keep the dust down. Don’t do it! It’ll star...

Of course, hindsight is genius.
Duh.
Let me take a minute to gloat.
It was July 20 2006, when I first took a weekend and worked up plans, bids and did a comprehensive analysis of “This Old Mold House” and a possible offer.
After extensive work I met with the owner’s son-in-law to present my findings and conclusions.
I worked very hard to make the numbers work. That is, I really wanted to buy the house for remodeling and resale. However, because I didn’t have a ready buy...

Inspired by Mark’s blog on his Sandzen inpired wood carving … thought might try one myself.
The idea for Haunted Forest TWO. Photo I digitally edited on my laptop. Layered a couple photos, grayscaled , rescaled, stretched, deformed, negative and pixelated ….
This is a challenge to myself. I have never made a carving this big, nor will I use the exact same methods that I have used in-the-past.
Hope to learn a few new tools and teach myself a few new tricks via ...

After demolishing the basement and cleaning it out, I had a chance to assess the real condition of the plumbing, electrical, heating, and various other parts of the house.
Not good!
I confirmed pretty much what I expected and that for which I had planned, and budgeted.
This included breaking up the floor and replacing all the floor drains and pipe, the plumbing needed to be redone.
The electrical wiring was in dire shape.
The heating plant (hot water hea...

Forgot how messy a router is. Mahogany machines like butter.Photos are the project with one section roughed in … deepest section … about 3/8 depth using 1/2 router bit.A section with the poster glued on and the tools I’m using, less the dust collector.
As mentioned in Marc’s blog … Bought a 1/8 down spiral do some detail work.
One thing I didn’t plan for was the paper wants to lift up next to the router bit. My work around is scoring the drawing with ...